VMware, Docker, Google and Pivotal are teaming up to help enterprises run and manage container-based applications on a common platform at scale.

The collaboration will enable enterprises to leverage existing VMware infrastructure to run and manage applications whether in a container, virtual machine or container within a virtual machine in a platform as a service (the Russian nesting doll of the virtual world).

Containers are a technology that package an application in a way that makes it portable across different data center or cloud environments. It clearly separates applications from infrastructure so the applications can easily move, enabling “write once, run anywhere”. VMware wants to help enterprises run their containerized applications on their VMware infrastructure.

The group is collaborating in a variety of different ways, all which aim to make container adoption in the VMware-based enterprise easier.

Docker and VMware will collaborate on interoperability between their two product porfolios. They will work on enabling Docker Engine on VMware workflows from build to deploy for VMware vSphere to VMware vCloud Air. The two will also collaborate on Docker-related open source projects libswarm, libcontainer and libchan. Further areas where they will work on interoperability include Docker Hub with VMware vCloud Air, VMware vCenter Server and VMware vCloud Automation Center.

VMware joined the Kubernetes community and will make Kubernetes' patterns, APIs and tools available to enterprises. Kubernetes, Google's open source container manager, deploys and manages containers into a fleet of servers. VMware has contributed code to bring Kubernetes to VMware vSphere, its cloud computing virtualization operating system, to make it easier for enterprises to use containers. Google and VMware will work together to bring the pod based networking model of Open vSwitch to enable multi-cloud integration of Kubernetes.

VMware, Pivotal and Docker will collaborate on enhancing the Docker libcontainer project with capabilities from Warden, a Linux Container technology originally developed at VMware for Cloud Foundry.

"The Pivotal CF team is a fan of Docker," wrote Ferran Rodenas, Pivotal engineer. "We firmly believe PaaS and containers are a good match, and Docker makes it super simple to build and share a consistent container image."